


Choke on the Waters of My Enemy

by BeesKnees



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-30
Updated: 2011-11-30
Packaged: 2017-10-26 17:18:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeesKnees/pseuds/BeesKnees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trials and tribulations of decomposition, or how Barty Crouch learned to sew.</p><p>Written for Regulus Fest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choke on the Waters of My Enemy

Regulus and Barty weren't far apart in age. It meant that Barty could always watch the little court that Regulus kept around him. Regulus was, in many ways, the youngest of his generation. He was the last little heir to the most ancient house of Black. Barty thought he was perfect in every way.

He was everything that was right and wrong about the families; he was a tradition that couldn't possibly survive in the modern era, but what they were all going to fight for anyway, because it was tradition. Barty had happily followed after Regulus, taking the mark, watching the way he strained and stressed and tried to be everything everyone wanted him to be.

In the end, really, Regulus could only be what Barty wanted him to be. Barty thought that made him very special. He had seen Regulus beginning to fall apart, the seeds of doubt beginning to grow in his mind; so, Barty had planted a very tiny idea of his own, something to do with the Dark Lord's mortality, because if Regulus Black was going to die, Barty needed to be involved in some way.

After everything had happened, after the quiet little funeral that Walburga Black had held and after the terrific row Sirius and Bellatrix had had about who was responsible for killing him, Barty had followed Regulus one last time, tracing his footsteps through blood and water.

He had been lucky, because Regulus hadn't made it very far. It hadn't been hard to wade in the shallows of the lake, being wary of the way that some of the Inferi liked to grab at his ankles, to bring him down. But there his little king was, his skin even paler than it had been before, his robes bogging him down like some waterlogged Ophelia.

When Barty had pulled him, he had been amazed by the look in Regulus' dark grey eyes. They were transparent, drained and lifeless – the very opposite of what Regulus had always been, but Barty couldn't help but love that this was what the house of Black had made their last son into. Barty had kissed his eyelids, able to feel the slick flesh beneath his lips.

He had undressed Regulus patiently, and he hadn't moved. His head had remained turned toward the lake, like a puppet with its strings all cut. The robes had fallen away and Barty had cast those away, because Regulus didn't need them anymore. He traced his hands along the cold skin, following veins that weren't pumping pureblood blood anymore. He had curled his fingers along the delicate nape of his neck and explored the way Regulus' knees pushed up, opening like hinges. There was none of the usual feeble stirring when Barty did this.

Barty found that he didn't care anymore, because this version of Regulus was all his. He had helped send him here and he was going to keep him now. He could remold him in any image that he wanted.

He laid with Regulus for a long time, his lips pressed in against where there should have been a pulse, his fingers tracing over the vacant Dark Mark.

He couldn't come back often. It was too dangerous. But that hardly meant that he didn't go. He considered slicing away the skin of Regulus' Dark Mark. It would be easy. The skin was pliable – and it hardly missed his attention when Regulus' skin began to become thinner, when the bones digging underneath the surface became more prominent. He liked to stretch himself on top of Regulus' body and pin his wrists about his head. He would feel the bones shift. He began to be able to count the ribs through Regulus' skin; the veneer of his puppet was rubbing off.

Everything was changing, shifting, in ways that Barty found fascinating. The delicate skin in the corners of Regulus' mouth began to run into fissures and he could see the tips of the bones of Regulus' fingers peeking out.

Barty didn't know where the idea came from, but he became obsessed with it. He couldn't let it go. So he didn't. It had to be black thread through. That he was certain of. There was something ironic about it.

Barty didn't know what real flesh would feel like, giving way to the silver glint of a needle, but he didn't think it would feel like this. This was moist. It felt as if what remained of Regulus' body was sucking the needle into the skin, integrating with it. It was always a struggle to bring the needle back up. Barty was clumsy with it at first, his fingers thick with the string. He loved watching it peek in out and out of Regulus' body, a startling contrast to the pale skin he was working on.

He covered Regulus' ribs back up and created criss-crosses up the backs of Regulus' calves. He put the Dark Mark back together, distorted, but present. He attacked those fissures at the corners of Regulus' mouth, lacing their way together, so that he was painting a portrait around his thin, fine lips. A Glasglow smile.

Barty loved to kiss the newly created lips. He'd run his tongues along the hard little bumps of the thread, able to feel the white skin pressing up underneath. He licked at where he tied it off. It was an intricate pattern that he engrained on his own body. He fingered the backs of Regulus' legs, undoing the laces just so he could make Regulus all over again. He got better at sewing. The x's became tight and small. He could fit entire rows along the lines of Regulus' arms. Sometimes, it seemed as if he was more thread than skin. Eventually, he sewed his eyelids down, so that he could kiss them always.

He touched him and touched him, his fingers wandering, occasionally supplemented by the needle.

Barty thought Regulus was perfect just the way he was.


End file.
